SKY - A Protogen Story

Collapse.

He was a veteran of The Great Collapse, the war between flesh and machine. Von was his name, and Axiom was his father. He lived in a past before the Collapse, and witnessed how the world grew more violent, more angry. Greed and anarchy ruled, and the world could only carry so many broken souls. Food had become scarce, and the water was polluted by the black sludge dumped from factories. Governments and big businesses did everything they could to get their paws on what remained, even if it cost the lives of thousands, for a small plate of food. Wounded paws with broken fingers yearned for the stars, but they themselves couldn't do it. So, they made others do it for them. The Protogens were born, but just like every newborn, they had to be raised to greatness, but there was no more greatness left in the world to teach them. There was only war and blood. In the midst of the chaos, good Furs stood as a beacon of hope, wanting peace, freedom. Furs like Thomas. Thomas Davidson, the leader of the Furry Resistance, once was the Furry Republic. He lead his armies through thick and thin, and from triumph after triumph, he set his sights on one location: The Server, the Holiest of Servers. Nobody knows what happened to him and his armies after that attack, as if they vanished from the world. But, few souls did. Souls like Von.

"Von! What are you looking at back there?" Tacticus had noticed him looking back at the ruined city they just left. "There's nothing but ash and gunfire there, mate!"

"I know." Von had replied, adjusting his scarf as a gust of wind pushed some sand towards his visor. "Crazy to think that this was once the capital city of the Furry Republic. Now look at it."

His brother, Tacticus, didn't reply after that, and neither did Von. He adjusted his body armor as he walked over to the rest of his siblings, all taller and more mightier than him, just like their father, Axiom. Even if they may have been more dumber and ill-minded than him, he was the smartest and most thought out of them all. To them, that was a mistake, including Axiom. He valued strength in war over strength in the mind, and because of it, Von received a laugh for every logical plan that one could think of. It didn't matter in a broken world. He squeezed into the small space he could fit in between his brothers Daft and Mirage. Daft, a child in a Primogenitors body, and Mirage, excellent in tricks and deceiving. Daft let out a childish giggle in the voice of a man, looking down at his 5'8 brother, being 6'7 himself.

"Har har, itty bitty lad." Even his tone was childish, trapped in an adults body.

"Kill it, Daft." Von replied annoyingly.

Troops were stationed around the sandy hill, some escaping from the heat in a nearby cave. The Primogenitors stood around a table, with a map present on it. On it, the continent of Karion. It was the center of the strife between the two factions, and someone was in the clear lead. Someone.

"Alright, listen, I'm not gonna repeat this twice." Axiom stated to his sons. "Scouts will look ahead for us. We find somewhere new to reside in, rest for the night, and continue through the badlands."

After the oceans were polluted, some of the world became dry, with no fertile soil or land for miles. Many called this stretched, deserted area the Badlands. They are very bad lands after all. The days are scorching, dangerous; filled with rival gangs and bandits. The nights, however, are worrying, cold, but beautiful at the same time.

Sitting near the exit of the cave, Von looked upward to the stars, gleaming bright in the sky. The world was polluted, but not enough to block the vastness of space. It was beautiful, truly. Muffled gunfire and screams caught his attention towards the city. He only turned his head as explosions followed, causing a building to crumble in the distance. From where he was, it was miniscule, as if it weren't a worry at all. It was everyday now. He turned his head and looked back up, observing a faint dot in the sky move quickly. It blinked on and off as it Von had kept his eyes on it. It shocked him in a way, as he had never seen something like this, not ever.

"That's what you call a satellite." His second eldest brother, Centaurus, commented. He stood a few feet away from Von, who continued to look up at the sky. "They look just like stars, don't they?"

"The Primagens taught us about them. They used to say how they were used to let everyone talk with one another, no matter where in the world you were. There were thousands of them up in space." Von replied, keeping his eyes on the soaring satellite, disappearing as it passed the horizon.

"There still is, baby brother." Centaurus kept his eyes on the sky as well.

There was a silence between the two; men loading their guns or moving boxes around the camp they furnished once they arrived. Von raised his paw and pointed his pointer finger at the stars, drawing an imaginary line between them. Nobody but him knew what he was drawing, but he was drawing, or tracing, something. Soon after, he lowered his paw, placing it on his right thigh, and letting out a sigh.

"I call it 'faith' " He named his project, and his brother continued to look upward. He didn't know what he drew, but there was something, and he was sure of it.

"Why faith, baby brother?" Centaurus asked, looking out into the horizon.

"Maybe it's because I still have faith in this world. It may be filled with greedy, narcissistic egomaniacs, but I still have faith, you know?" Even Von didn't know why he still had faith. "Do you think the world can still be fixed?"

Centaurus sat aside his baby brother, looking outward into the horizon with him, letting out a chuckle as he heard the word 'faith' and 'fixed'. Faith was scarce, and no good people were left in the world to fix the world. Maybe there was, but who would know?

"A world full of peace cannot exist, nor can a world full of hate survive. How can anyone forge love from hate? It's just not possible." Centaurus was never one to mince words, especially knowing how slowly the world crumbled right in front of him. Von saw as well, and because of it,  he made survival his main priority. In a world full of crazed men, it was impossible to tell who the truly crazy was: The Primogenitors, or everyone else.

.  .  .

"Ey', boss!" A lieutenant shouted to Axiom from the edge of the cliff. "You may wanna look at this."

The lieutenant was looking through a pair of binoculars as Axiom approached. He lowered the binoculars as he handed them to Axiom, who, just like the lieutenant, looked through them, gazing into the distance. Following where he pointed, Axiom scanned the sandy desert, until coming up on the ruins of an abandoned oil rig, decently high above the ground. The cranes, funnels, and pillars seemed to be in stable condition, whilst everything else was slowly deteriorating. It could still be saved. It had a chance.

"A Fabryka." The lieutenant commented.

"Must've been abandoned after the Big Business Battles." Tacticus spoke as he approached his father.

He was right. Many things were lost and abandoned after the Collapse, considering everyone was killing each other for the last ounces of food and water in the world. Rigs such as these weren't build only for extracting fossil fuels, but as laboratories. Scientists wanted to make artificial food in secret, so they built massive rigs in the middle of the ocean, working day and night as a last hope for the world. It's shattered ruins reveal a failed attempt at salvation.

"Gutter Got, we hit the jackpot!" A soldier remarked, and true he was. "Looks like we found our new home, eh?"

Many didn't think this was true. At first glance it looked like a broken down oil rig, seeming as if the tiniest of weapons could cause it to tumble to the ground. But, Axiom had faith in it. Where his people saw a broken rig, he saw an impenetrable fortress, just waiting for it's new owner to come. He surely wasn't going to wait for someone else to take it from him. He had a small army following behind him already, and sure enough, more were soon to come, it was only a matter of time and faith. Time and faith.